DENVER -- With all the enthusiastic jumping and joyful screaming, you would never know that Joan Ahimbisibwe and Teddy Namuyiga had just come off a 28-hour flight.

The two Ugandan women were treated like celebrities when they were met at Denver International Airport on Tuesday afternoon by a contingent of greeters from Boulder-based BeadforLife. BeadforLife co-founder and Executive Director Devin Hibbard said the organization worked for six years to secure visas to bring over women from Uganda.

"We have something to learn and something to gain from the women of Uganda," she said. "They have amazing stories of hardship and suffering and overcoming the odds."

BeadforLife teaches women living in the slums of Kampala, Uganda, to become entrepreneurs. The women start by rolling beads from recycled paper, earning money to improve their living conditions. Many go on to start their own businesses with the help of BeadforLife training.

Ahimbisibwe and Namuyiga will tour six cities over next three weeks -- Boulder, Washington, D.C., Pittsburgh, New York City, San Francisco and Los Angeles. They'll tell their stories to BeadforLife volunteers and donors, along with getting a chance to see mountains, the ocean and national landmarks.

In Boulder this week, their plans include a visit to a retirement home and to Horizons K-8. Their tour officially kicks off with an event at eTown Hall on Friday. For both women, this is their first opportunity to travel outside Uganda.

"We are so, so happy," Ahimbisibwe said. "We are excited to see America."

She said she wants to share her story of how joining the BeadforLife program was a "turning point."

"My life was bad," she said. "They taught me how to run a business. They changed my life. I'm now a happy woman and a successful woman."

When Ahimbisibwe's husband died from AIDS, her land and home went to her two brother-in-laws -- who also expected to "inherit" Ahimbisibwe as their new wife. She fled with her two young children to Kampala, where she made mud bricks. She earned less than $1 a day and lived in a shack in a swamp.

Making beads, Ahimbisibwe used her first income to buy a piglet she fed on scraps and later sold for a profit. She moved to a storefront, selling rice, soap and sodas to the local community. Now, the 40-year-old owns land and a home and can send two of her three children to a boarding school.

She said she's looking forward both to this trip and to sharing her experiences with other women in Uganda.

"When we go back, we'll tell them a very long story," she said.

For Namuyiga, her life fell apart when her husband left after she refused to give away her youngest daughter, who is deaf. She washed clothes and dug on a farm to survive, making less than $12 a month.

Within three months of joining BeadforLife, she bought a cow and continued to save money. Realizing there wasn't constant water supply in her community, she invested in a huge water tank and began selling water to her neighbors. She also built a pigsty and began rearing pigs and then chickens.

"It was a lot of hard work," she said. "We put in a lot of effort. We're now successful businesswomen who can support ourselves and our families. We want to prosper and prosper."

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